USA

Our first visit to USA came about because of our medical training. At that time most of the doctors went to England for post graduate studies.

The story of how it happened is an interesting story. After completing his Post Graduate exam my husband began working in Cardiology section of our hospital. In those days in Mumbai Post Graduate speciality study was not available.

At that time, a senior physician in our hospital had started a department for cardiac patients. It was during this period that the renowned cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig visited our hospital. My husband presented a case history at a meeting attended by her.

While she was still in Mumbai, my husband was invited to meet her. During their conversation, he expressed his desire to work in her department in the United States. To his delight, she agreed and invited him to join her team. New trainees in the United States usually joined in August. However, several of Dr. Taussig's fellows from other countries were leaving earlier than expected, so she asked my husband to come as soon as possible. As a result, he left for the United States in June.

I was still working in Mumbai in the Paediatric department and planning to finish my further studies as Post graduate. 

I followed him during Easter holidays. Along with me was a friend from Chennai whose husband stayed in the same apartment as my sister in Philadelphia. So we both travelled on the same Air India flight, she from Chennai and I from Mumbai. As a result we both were received at Idlewild airport at New York. We first reached from there to Philadelphia for one night. This resulted  a nice company for us also, so we visited Philly often. All of us in the group liked to play Bridge that made it enjoyable. Ordering Pizza was a must.

As I reached during Easter it  gave me a chance to plan a short holiday. Travelling by Trailways bus we went to Florida with a stop over at Daytona Beach for one night.

My husband had already found for me to work at a Research study on New Born babies. This was a study organised at multiple places by NHA. I was lucky to get to work in this study at JHH (The Johns Hopkins Hospital). As this did not involve every day work for me I  joined  to work at Out patient department in Paediatric Neurology. Once a week all of us were required to meet in the Office of Dr. Clark to present and discuss the case seen in Out patient.

Also one member of Paediatric Neurology , I think his name was Dr. Mc’lean used to visit a center in city of retarded children, I used to go with him. That helped me to learn a little more of Paediatric Neurology. We lived close to hospital so use of car was not needed. A little later we got our car so we had freedom to visit friends etc.

In early days most of our visits outside of Baltimore used to be to Philadelphia, as my sister studied at Univ. of Pensilvania. She stayed in an apartment where we had several friends known to us. All of us liked to play Bridge and often shared the meals. Ordering a Pizza was a must.

By than we bought a car also, to make it easy to get around in Baltimore.

During our stay, we made the most of the cultural opportunities available. We attended concerts by renowned musicians such as Dave Brubeck and watched several famous stage productions, some of them among the most popular shows of the time. Although I no longer remember all their names, the experience of seeing live theatre in America remains one of my happiest memories. 

We frequently visited Philly. A family was assigned to my sister by University so that on weekends and holidays can be enjoyed with them. Later this lovely family always invited us also for major celebrations.

As we couldn’t afford to travel to places we always met our friends from India in other cities. This resulted in our visit to Chicago to meet one of our best friend from India, who was doing internship in a hospital. Instead of spending time in Chicago he drove us to Wisconsin. Wisconsin is quite different from the big cities. Everything around was green and there was a river flowing near by.